The Quran

صِراطَ الَّذينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِم غَيرِ المَغضوبِ عَلَيهِم وَلَا الضّالّينَ

Mir Ahmed Ali

The path¹ of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed^I Thy bounties,² not (the path) of those inflicted^II with Thy wrath, nor (of those) gone^III astray.

Siraatal-lazeena an’amta alaihim—Siraatal-lazeena means the path of those and An’amta alaihim means on whom thou (’O’ Our Lord!) has bestowed thy bounties.
This verse explains and determines the right guidance which man needs and for which he must pray. Otherwise by merely saying guide me aright on the Straight or the Right Path is indefinite, for every path which the fancy of anyone chooses, will naturally deem it to be straight and God does not send angels to everyone to guide him. When God Himself, through His last revealed Book, the Qur’an, teaches man to pray to be guided aright. He alone can guide man to the identity of the path which, with Him is deemed Straight and Right. Thus the Divine Grace of the All-Merciful Lord through this verse of the First chapter of the Qur’an, guides mankind furthermore to the exact track which mankind should adopt, to be on the right. The verse explains to mankind that if the right path is desired to be followed, they must adopt the path of those on whom the Lord has bestowed His favours or bounties and they can be no others than those purified by God Himself (33:33) i.e. the Holy Ahlul-Bait.
To be more clear and sure of the Straight Path and to have a model or a guiding example in view, the Qur’an made an explanatory clause of ‘Siraataal-lazeena an’amta alaihim’ i.e. the path of those on whom God has bestowed His bounties—vide 4:69—5:16-19—19:58. Though His bounties are the outcome of His All-Pervading and Universal Grace (Rahmaniyat) and has encompassed all His creatures ‘wa Rahmati wasa’at kulla shaiy’, i.e. and My grace encompasses everything—(7:155) yet as the outcome of His ‘Raheemiyat’ He has specified in various places in the Qur’an that of the children of Adam, Noah and Abraham the chosen personalities are viz. Nabeeyeen the prophets, siddiqueen, the truthful ones shuhada the Martyrs and Saleeheen the righteous and those who follow their footsteps with utmost exactness, vide 4:69.
5:6, 19—19:58. Thus with this restriction there is no need of taking ‘Ghairil Maghdhoobe’ as the qualifying adjectival clause for the personal pronoun ‘alaihim’ or the relative pronoun ‘Al-lazeena’ (Vide Zamaqshari) because ‘An’amta alaihim’ is already a restriction. Therefore these two subsequent clauses should be taken as appositional clauses in the negative form. However ‘Ghairil Maghdhoobe’ and ‘waladdhalleen’ are those who have deviated from the straight path ordered by God by falling short of the order which subjects them to His wrath or by exceeding the prescribed limits of the divine command and gone astray. The straight path of the Holy Prophets, is in between the ‘Taqseer’ i.e. falling short of the order and ‘Ghuloo’ i.e. the transgression of the limits. Terming the Jews as the ‘maghdhoobe alaihim’ and the Christians as ‘Dhalleen’ is only an exemplary expression for ‘Taqseer’ and ‘Ghuboo’. Whoever falls short of the command is included in the ‘Maghdhoobe alaihim’ and those who have transgressed the prescribed limits are included in ‘Dhalleen’.
Those who brought the person whom God has made next only to the Holy Prophet of Islam, in all accomplishments, to the fourth position in the panel made by man for the disciples of the Holy Prophet, are surely falling short of the order as the Jews and those who raised up the persons who were sinners, ignorant and unstable in their faith and of questionable character and conduct, to status of the divinely inspired guides, taking them as spiritual leaders of the guidance for the Muslims, have surely exceeded the limits and hence are included in the ‘Dhalleen’ as the Christians. Likewise who raise the holy souls, the prophets and their successors to the state of godhead are equally condemnable as ‘Dhalleen’. (A.P.)
The question arises as to what kind of bounties are they and who are those so favoured by God? If material wealth is inferred by the word ‘bounties’, then it is absurd, for even the most devilish ones in the world are given to own such gifts comparatively in greater abundance than the righteous ones, and the path would be of the most impious ones of the devilish beings in the world. But the subsequent clause of this verse makes the meaning clear that the favoured ones are those who never go astray, nor do anything which incurs the displeasure of God.
The favours or the bounties meant in this clause of the verse will pre-eminently be the gift of mental, moral and spiritual perfection incapacitating any sin or error, and the correct identification of such perfect beings lies in their personal purity which would never have been corrupted by any evil of any kind from the beginning of their life on earth to the end of it. Such ones of the ideal purity and innocence are called the ‘Masoomeen’ who are only fourteen in number in Islam, viz. the Holy Prophet and his divinely chosen successors called the Twelve Imams (or the holy Guides) and Lady Fatema, the holy daughter of the Prophet. There are besides the apostles preceding the Holy Prophet, who were also Masoom’s.
When God enjoins upon mankind to follow the path of those on whom He has bestowed His bounties, it naturally means that there are, and there will always be until the end of the world, people on whom He would have bestowed His bounties, who will be destined to be the ideal men and the correct and testified models of righteousness on earth. These men according to simple logic and the reasoning of mere common sense, cannot be but those who should necessarily resemble the Holy Prophet in their external as well as their internal purity and with the same store of knowledge and wisdom which idealized the Holy Prophet as the ‘Khairul-Bashar’ the Best of mankind. Otherwise without making available the model, the order to copy it, will be sheer cruelty and nothing short of foolishness. This verse proves beyond all doubts, the existence of an Imam in every age until the Day of Judgment.
If we ask the Holy Prophet as to who these people are, on whom have been bestowed the bounties of God, he would reply saying:—
“He who is the best in knowledge and wisdom”—for what the Holy Qur’an says about those endowed with knowledge and wisdom and those divinely guided see—2:247, 269, 10:35, 13:16, 39:9 and 67:22. These verses guide the seeker of the right path towards the various factors that entitle one to be a religious leader or a spiritual guide and leave the question of the selection of a leader to the discretion of every individual, as a test and even a trial after revealing the truth from falsehood, as there should be no compulsion after it, see—2:256.
He who has been gifted with knowledge has been given goodness in abundance. Besides the Holy Prophet has already declared i.e. ‘I and Ali are of the one and the same Light’. This speaks of the internal purity of Ali, and the Holy Prophet has also declared ‘I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate’. There are numberless traditions the Holy Prophet declaring the unique position of Ali in Islam, identifying him with the Holy Prophet in his personal purity, both physical and spiritual. This verse clearly means that to be guided aright one should in the absence of the Holy Prophet, follow Ali, son of Abu Taleb, and the divinely chosen ones among his issues. The Holy Prophet while departing from this world gave his last and the final guidance to all his followers for all times saying:—
“I leave behind amidst you Two things of great importance; The Book of God and my Ahlul-Bait (the Holy members of the Prophet s family). Should ye keep yourselves attached to these Two, never will ye get astray; verily, never will the Two be separated from each other, until they both meet me on the Spring of ‘Kauther’ (in paradise)”. (Hadith)
The All-Merciful God, guarantees to guide a sincere seeker to His own ways:—
“Those who (sincerely) strive in Us, We (Ourselves) certainly guide them unto Our ways” 29:69.
The one unique characteristic of the Qur’an, is that under such circumstances it never points out the name of the person but only describes the personality and this puts the free choice of the seeker to test. The Qur’an has offered sufficiently clear guidance towards the correct, the genuine and the divinely inspired guides i.e. the Holy Imams succeeding the Holy Prophet, describing the unique qualities they have been exclusively endowed with, vide—67:22, 10:35, 5:55.
Thus the model men whose ways are those which every human being should covet to follow, are no other than the Holy Prophet and the Holy Imams whose personal purity from the moment of their advent in this physical world until their departure from it, have been unquestionably nothing but the manifestation of the glory of the divine purity about which God Himself through His Final Book to mankind, the Qur’an, has declared—33:33.
As regards the identification of the pious whose path man has been directed by the All-Merciful Lord to pray to be guided to, to realise the object of his creation, the Qur’an is not silent. It has repeatedly been described as to who the genuine pious ones are, in several verses in different places of the Holy Book. One such verse will be sufficient to give man a clear glimpse of the personality of genuinely pious ones—2:177.
The pious ones described in the above verse are not those who possess only some of those qualities and not the others, but those who possess all the qualities together. In our sincere search for such ones, we find only the Holy Prophet and his godly ‘Ahlul-Bait’, and no others in the Islamic World as a whole. The Holy Prophet has testified to this fact in his famous Hadith or traditions The Holy Prophet has even compared his Ahlul-Bait to the Arc of Noah:—
The likeness of my Ahlul-Bait is like the Arc of Noah, Whosoever got into it saved himself and whosoever turned against it, was drowned and lost (Hadith).
The starting clause of the verse 2:177 clearly declares that there is no virtue in merely the form of the external manifestation of anything seeming to be religious but the actual merit lies in the qualities which are detailed in the verse. Hence man should never be guided merely by the appearance which seems to be good and holy.
Thus the prayer will mean to be guided to the path of the Holy Prophet and his Ahlul-Bait, and to be helped to remain steadfast on it.
Here under this unavoidable need of prayer, arises the necessity of the doctrine of ‘Tawalla’ or the close and the faithful attachment to the righteous ones desired to be followed as an article of the faith. The necessity of ‘Tabarra’ follows under the latter part of this very same verse Ghairil-Maghdhoobe-Alaihim, Waladhalleen.
One thing which cannot and should not be spared from being brought to light, for the information of the readers of this Holy Book, is that ‘Wahi’ or Revelation as the special means of communicating the Divine Will, employed exclusively in case of the Apostles of God, who had to convey the Divine Message in the words of the Lord Himself. This privilege of receiving directions by means of ‘Wahi’ or Revelation direct from God through the agency of Gabriel, the Messenger Angel, ended with the Holy Prophet Muhammad the Last of God’s Apostles. No angel did ever come to any one after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, with any message whatsoever.
’Wahi’ or revelation through the Messenger Angel could be sent only to an Apostle of God endowed with the purity of the personal calibre which can bear it. No other man and woman who does not have the essential cleanliness can ever have it because he or she cannot bear to be conditioned in the communion with the overwhelming strength of the angelic force. Only that implement of steel which is essentially pure in its property, and which is specially tempered for the purpose, can bear the influence of the electrical energy and transform it into light if it has to manifest its effect in a bulb, and not every bit of iron or even of steel even purified to any degree. Similarly every box, however beautiful and strong it may be, cannot receive the voices transmitted in the air by a radio station and resound them from it. Only a radio receiving set which is made for the purpose and which is duly equipped with the necessary valves, can receive successfully and reproduce closely the sound waves in the air. Similarly, every soul in a human frame, cannot be the Holy Prophet Muhammad or any of the apostles or the chosen ones of God, who have been made with a purpose or for a purpose, with the calibre necessary for the services divinely desired of those Holy persons. There is another point worthy of note that gets quite plain from the structure of a radio set and its function. Radio sets only with special strength can receive the voices from any distance and at any meter, and not all radio sets irrespective of their individual quality or capacity. Similarly, all the apostles are doubtlessly the true apostles of God but they vary in their personal position in respect of the individual capacity divinely endowed in them. It is referring to this factor about the personalities of the apostles of God that the Qur’an declares—2:253.
But the commentator of a new school of thought in his endeavour to create some room for the possibility of apostleship of one whom he hails as an apostle, has resorted to several unacceptable arguments based upon the logic of his own conjectures. He thinks that the divine favour of guiding a human soul through Wahi or revelation, can always be bestowed upon any one until the Day of Judgment. This is obviously to create room to somehow argue out the possibility for the apostleship of one of his own fancy. Nobody can ever deny that the divine guidance through revelation can and may continue as long as God wills. The advocate of a new apostle should know that what ‘Wahi’ or revelation which he wants for his apostle can freely have it but the mere word ‘Wahi’ or revelation does not mean what is revealed to him to be from God. The word ‘Wahi’ laterally means a mental awakening towards any idea. The awakening can be even from Satan, as we have been informed through the Qur’an that Satan effects his misleading through his own ways of ‘Wahi’ but the Wahi from God towards those whom He wills to guide, can be through inspiration which is called in Arabic ‘Ilham’ and the same divine grace when meant for a higher purpose of conveying any message to any apostle, is effected through the messenger angel Gabriel, which course of the divine communication ended with the Holy Prophet Muhammad. At the perfection of the religion Islam, the apostolic service had to conclude its role, and only at its perfection the Religion, was named ‘Islam’ and this was the completion of the Divine Bounties towards mankind which has been openly declared in 5:3. With the departure of the Last Apostle of God, also stopped the angelic course of communication between God and man. The ‘Wahi’ in the form of ‘Ilham’ meaning only inspiration will naturally continue. It may reach a man and even a fly like the bee when it has to execute a plan by the All-Wise Lord of the Universe.
‘The Lord revealed (i.e. inspired) to the bee saying take houses (hives) in the mountains’—16:68.
Here in this Verse exactly the word ‘Wahi’ or the revelation meaning inspiration has been used and simply because the word ‘Wahi’ is used for the inspiration or the instinct which even the tiny fly is endowed with, the insect cannot sensibly be considered to be an apostle of God.
’Wahi’ in the meaning or sense of inspiration, definitely continues and must continue without which no good in the world can ever be done by any one and at the same time, the same method of inspiring evil into the wicked minds of his devotees has been granted to Satan, which boon along with the respite, has been allowed to him to mislead those whom he can successfully capture through inspiring evil in them against the guidance which they already had from God through the apostolic services of the huge number of the prophets.
None can ever understand that when:—
1. The conception about God is to remain the same.
2. The Qur’an which is the Fountainhead of the faith and its practice, to be the same.
3. The Method of prayers (compulsory), to be the same.
4. Qiblah or the Central Turning Point, to be the same.
5. When the religion has been perfected by God Himself, His Bounties completed and the religion finally named, is also to remain unchanged.
Where does arise the need for any new apostle from God and why would God trouble the Messenger Angel Gabriel, without any new message which could not be added to His Final Book the Holy Qur'an.
The Truth is, neither there is any necessity of any new apostle to come, after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, nor will any apostle come in future till the Day of Judgement for any service connected with the apostleship of God. At the same time none can stop anyone who wants to assume the office of his own imaginary apostleship, for many such imposters have already come and gone.
It is against such false prophets that the great mystic poet Rumi, in his world renowned classic, Mathnavi, has said:—
‘Ai basa Iblees Aadam roo’ee hast Pas bahar dasti nashaayad daad dast’
Often times Satan appears in human form. Hence one should not give his hand in the hand of every one (who appears to be human).
Ghairil-Maghdhoobe Alaihim Waladdhalleen. This part or the 7^th verse means ‘Not the path of those on whom fell Thy wrath, nor of those who have gone astray’. This is a further explanatory clause of the prayer in which the supplicant expresses his hatred towards those who have rebelled against the Divine Authority and gone astray and consequently earn the Wrath of God. This is the doctrine of Tabarra which means being aloof from evil and the evil ones.
The words in this verse are only descriptive without mentioning the names of those who earned the Wrath of God and those who have gone astray. By leaving the language merely descriptive the Holy Book has made them applicable to any people who earn the qualities of the described kinds of the people.
The Holy Prophet in illustrating the verse has been reported to have said that those who have brought upon themselves The Wrath of God, are the Jews for their rejecting Jesus and persecuting him as they did, and those gone astray owing to their exaggerating an apostle of God, who was a man and a mortal, to the status of godhead, calling him the son of God and worshipping him in the place of God Himself be the Christians.
What the Holy Prophet has been reported to have said, is only by way of an explanation and illustration of the verses but the significance or the application of the verses does not get restricted or confined only to the two particular people. The meaning of the verse is definitely applicable to anyone who rejects the Holy Prophet or anyone of the divinely commissioned Imams from the Holy Ahlul-Bait, as well as those who exaggerate and unwarrantedly raise any one to any position which the individual does not deserve.
Though, those on whom falls God’s wrath and those who go astray, are mentioned separately, the responsibility of both the categories, of suffering the Wrath of God, and of going astray, rests with the men and not with any despotic monarchical cruelty of the Lord. The first kind suffers the Wrath for their deliberately breaking the law of the All-Merciful Lord and the second kind strays owing to their carelessness and ignorance.
This last verse of the Opening Chapter of the Qur’an, in its guidance as to the verbal expression of a supplication to God, demands every individual supplicant to express his personal hatred against evil and the evil ones. It is under this expressed Will of God that the doctrine of Tabarra occupies in the practical code of the religion, Islam. As without this last verse of this chapter, the chapter will be incomplete. Islam as a religion without the doctrine of Tawallah, along with Tabarra, can never be complete, for a mere declaration of friendship with any one, without the hatred against his enemies, can never be genuine or reliable. Similarly, merely professing attachment to the Holy Prophet Mohammad can never be sufficient or a reliable proof of its genuineness unless the devotee gives a simultaneous assurance by a similarly open declaration of hatred against the enemies of the Holy Prophet and his beloved godly members of his holy family who have been praised by God in the words of the Qur’an as those specially purified by God Himself 33:33.
Notes—Some matters are oft-repeated in the above notes but under different headings. It was necessary to do it, to facilitate easy and correct understanding of the topics, with their allied references.

Arabic ‘An’amta’.
Arabic ‘Maqhzoob’.
Arabic ‘Dhalleen’